A lot of star players credit their team because it's the right thing to do, but you can tell Raphael Lawson-Gayle is passionate about what his teammates bring to the table and how they've sparked his success.

After all, Lawson-Gayle has never had the kind of success in football he is enjoying this year. The senior ball carrier has amassed 2,342 all-purpose yards and 20 touchdowns as the primary playmaker on the Mira Costa football team.

Lawson-Gayle boasts 1,326 yards and 17 touchdowns carrying the ball in the team's Veer offense. The former wide receiver also has 18 catches for 263 yards and a touchdown. He has 15 kickoff returns for 469 yards and two touchdowns and 19 punt returns for 284 yards.

Not bad for a converted wide receiver asked to carry the load in a new run offense.

"In the Veer you have to be hard-nosed, and coming from wide receiver, we didn't know if he'd make that transition like we wanted," Mira Costa coach Don Morrow said. "But he's been tougher than heck."

Lawson-Gayle showed glimpses of what he might become the last couple of years, but by no stretch was a break-out season like he's had a slam dunk ... He's come a long way.

"It's a neat story of the growing up process of a kid," Mira Costa coach Don Morrow said. "I didn't know him much as a ninth grader, then as a sophomore he was going to be on JV, but you could see the potential. He just had to grow up a bit."

Lawson-Gayle ended up on varsity as a sophomore, and played some wide receiver and returned kicks and punts before a high ankle sprain sidelined him.

Then last year as a junior, Lawson-Gayle put together a full season at wide receiver, showing flashes of brilliance, and Mira Costa began to see what was possible.

"Last year was key for him in his development," Morrow said. "It was his first full year of football."

Lawson-Gayle had 21 catches for 294 yards and a touchdown last year for a Mira Costa team that did not boast much of a passing game, and occasionally he'd motion into the backfield and run the ball.

After an offseason of hard work, learning a new offense, and learning to play defense for the first time, Lawson-Gayle was primed for a big senior year.

"Before the season started I envisioned some touchdowns, some carries, but I did not expect to do the things I've done," Lawson-Gayle said. "Now we're a team looking to win a CIF title."

Lawson-Gayle has several highlight-reel plays to his credit, but says his favorite was a 69-yard kick return for a touchdown against Newport Harbor because of how his teammates were there for him.

"If you see the film, everyone on the team had a block," Lawson-Gayle said. "That was a real team effort - everyone was on somebody."

Another of his top plays this season came against West Torrance, which is Mira Costa's opponent tonight in the CIF Southern Section Northern Division quarterfinals.

Mira Costa wanted to run a weak-side Veer play it had mild success with earlier in the game.

"Before the play I told him `pick up your feet more,"' Morrow said. "He lifted his stride over the front line, landed in stride then went for a 60- or 70-yard touchdown run."

It was a 66-yard touchdown run that helped spark Mira Costa (8-3) to a wild 62-42 victory over West (8-3) in the Bay League opener for both teams.

Lawson-Gayle and Mira Costa have rolled from there, their only blemish an afternoon loss at league champion Palos Verdes. Mira Costa has won six of its last seven games, and Lawson-Gayle's emergence is a big reason.

"He's gone from an obscure, great athlete to now we're trying to get (recruiting) tape out to people," Morrow said. "He's a hybrid type of athlete who can run and catch that colleges like these days. We never thought he'd be a D-I guy - now we all think he will be. There's a big need for runner/pass receivers, and he has enough quickness."

Morrow said Lawson-Gayle runs the 100 meters in track and field and always is ahead in the first 40 yards. In football games he's able to turn it up an extra notch.

"He has game speed that is a different speed than if you time him," Morrow said. "We've played schools with tremendous speed guys and he's run away from those guys. When he gets out in the open no one is catching him."

Lawson-Gayle hopes to run away from West defenders in what promises to be an epic South Bay showdown tonight at West High.

"That game is going to be a fight to the end, they have great athletes and we do, too," Lawson-Gayle said. "Both teams have good coaching and good athletes. Whatever the score is, it will be close. They'll adjust to their mistakes and we'll adjust to ours. It's going to be great. I can't wait to play in that game."